Photocatalytic Degradation of Methyl Orange Dye Using Zinc Oxide Nanorods/polyacrylonitrile Fibers

In this research, zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods were grown by chemical bath deposition method on two types of electrospun polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofibers for photocatalytic decomposition of methyl orange dye. Various structures of ZnO were investigated to achieve the maximum rate of photocatalytic degradation by adjusting the growth variables of nanorods, including growth time, concentration of growth solution, and growth substrate, using the design of Expert (DOE) technique. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) pattern of the sample confirmed the wurtzite crystal structure, and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) analysis showed an energy gap of 3.2 eV for ZnO. Also, the optimized sample with a growth time of 10 hours and a concentration of 62.5 mM of zinc nitrate and hexamethylenetetramine (HMTA) showed a decomposition rate constant (k) of 0.0038 min-1</sup>. Flexibility, quick and convenient recovery of photocatalyst from treated wastewater, and easy and cheap synthesis method promise the operational applications of the synthesized samples.